maybe choosing to take pucks to the head is a sign

I am not entirely sure what this phenomenon says about me, given that my favorite players are always goalies.

In fact, interviewing CuJo was far and away the highlight of my brief career as a sports -- all right, a hockey -- columnist. This is, I should add, the same career (for the illustrious (snrk!) establishment of the John Burroughs World) during which I actually finagled a press pass and got to sit in the fabulously luxurious press box at a Blues game in the then-new Kiel Center. I did so on a night that will live in my memory as the night I met Bobby Hull, who was drunk and hit on me while his son scored a double hat trick. I also met Bobby Orr, who was a true gentleman and herded the lascivious Hull away from the wide-eyed, relatively freaked-out girl in the elevator who was frantically taking notes on a steno pad, which she only had because she thought it was somehow reporter-esque.

Not to say I didn't turn the experience into a column. I did. No one much cared, including me.

But the day I got to linger outside the locker room after pre-skate and ask what had to be the dumbest questions ever ("So, uh, do you get tired during games?") to a young and probably at least moderately unbalanced guy who had the image of a rabid evil dog painted on his helmet?

Pure joy. Did I turn it into a column? Probably. Did anyone care? Hells yeah. CuJo was a god back then.

Goalies may be crazy, but their fans? Positively wacked.